DevLeague

I had zero coding knowledge when I first started DevLeague. I was probably one of the worst students before I even offically became a student to be honest. I had no idea what I was doing and I would send in tons of emails trying to get help on problems... Read More I was having. That's how badly I wanted my acceptance into DevLeague. What really amazed me was the amount of help and feedback I received even before being offically enrolled. Then I said to myself, "If I'm getting this much help as someone not in DevLeague, it'll only get better once I'm actually a student there!". It's funny, I think I was so bad that I'm one of the reasons why they had to start DevLeague Prep courses. DevLeague isn't for everyone. If you think you have what it takes, then definitely apply and give it your all because it's going to take everything you've got to succeed. I promise it'll be well worth it though!

I left the San Francisco Bay Area to learn to code at Dev League and it far exceed any expectation I had of what a coding bootcamp could be.

At times it was incredibly arduous and you will feel like you wont be able to make it through, but the instructors... Read More are always helpful and the amazing community surrounding it immerses you into a world of programming .

I had very little coding experience before doing the challenge they provide, but I knew I made the right choice from the first day. Three months later and my choice has brought out a myriad of skills in me that I didn’t even realize I had!

I live in Melbourne, and General Assembly is 5 minutes walk from my house. Yet I chose DevLeague. Here's why:

1. Instructor to Student Ratio

DevLeague has 2 full time teachers and 3 teaching assistants every day. My class had 8 students, so that's nearly... Read More a 1 : 2 teacher:student ratio.

2. Coverage of topics

DevLeague covers A LOT. It is a 6 day/week, 12 hours/day course. Topics included:

- Front end: HTML, CSS, Sass, ReactJS, AngularJS

- DOM

- JQuery and Bootstrap were deliberately not covered to teach us how stronger fundamentals, i.e. how to do things the "hard way". The idea is that you should only use outside frameworks where necessary and to understand their limitations.

- XMLHttpRequests (using APIs)

- Server side: net, http and Express

- Templating Engines: Jade, fs

- Databases: SQL, postgreSQL, sequelize ORM, noSQL, mongoDB, mongoose, server side architecture

- Authentication: Passport, Auth, OAuth

- Writing tests for your code: Mocha, Chai, SuperTest

- DevOps - like actual granular devops using command line on Digital Ocean, not just Heroku.

- Well taught Language skills and best practices: Functional programming, including array iterators, call, bind, apply, callbacks, promises

- Revealing module pattern and OOP

- Security and encryption, SHA512, bcrypt

3. Ongoing support:

- They actively email potential employers for you and help you review your CV.

- They have a wide network of former students who are available to help you

- It is still run by the owners of the business, not some multinational trying to churn students out at a profit

Disclaimer: I completed the pre-coursework, attended pre-course web meetings, and two weeks of the fulltime program. Unfortunately I had to leave due to a family emergency. Despite not completing the program, I want to share my thoughts.

Attending a coding... Read More bootcamp is a major investment of both time and money. I'd been doing self-study and some community college web design/dev courses for about a year when I decided to make the jump to an immersive program. If you're reading this, I'm sure you're in the middle of doing lots of due diligence like I did. If you're local to Hawaii, DevLeague is the only game in town which rightfully could make you nervous. There also aren't a ton of reviews out there. That's why I'm taking the time to write this post, to help with your decision to see if it's right for you.

Instead of a rambling, TLDR post, I'm going to give you my Top 5 Thoughts about my experience at DevLeague:

1. The instructors are Grade A+ people. The main instructors for the fulltime program at the time were Jason, Jon and Ray. They are very knowledgeable and helpful. They have a passion for teaching and pushing you to be your very best. Super approachable, friendly and easy to talk to.

2. You will feel like it's Final Exam day, everyday. By that I mean the program is rigorous and you'll work you butt off. If you're not 100% committed, then an immersive bootcamp is definitely not the way to go. Material will come fast and you're expected to pick things up quickly. You'll need to be mentally and physically prepared for 10+ hour days, 6 days a week.

3. The location is excellent. The Manoa Innovation Center is easy to get to, has ample parking, and has a great vibe to it. Lots of professionals work there. There are fun networking events. It's like a mini-tech hub. And it's located right next to Manoa Marketplace where there's lots of tasty eateries, coffeeshops and a Safeway. If I could work at any location in Hawaii, I'd love to work here.

4. You'll form strong bonds with your cohort mates. Honestly, I didn't expect this part going in. I'm a friendly guy and all, but just after a couple weeks I really enjoyed being with the cohort everyday. It was super easy to work with everyone. I'm really stoked that they are all successful devs now!

5. Like anything in life, it's not perfect. They are constantly iterating and creating new material. This led to some disorganization. Also, the main instructors are professional developers who run their own companies, so they were not always around or sometimes were preoccupied. You may feel slighted by this, but when you think about it, I'm glad that DevLeague is always trying new things and staying current with the changing tech landscape. And the fact that the instructors are badass devs running companies keeps them at the top of the game.

So my advice when things get bumpy, is to take the longterm view on life. Right now you may be pissed that the tests for the new sprint are full of bugs, but in less than 3 months from now you'll be a Full Stack Web Developer with the skills to get job. Isn't that totally awesome? What an amazing opportunity you have right now! Don't waste it. Put your head down and push through.

The Bottom Line: Even though leaving the program felt like a Connor McGregor punch to the face, I wouldn't trade that time for anything. DevLeague is totally legit and we in Hawaii are very lucky to have this program here. If the opportunity ever arose again, I love hands down attend this program.

Came from a lucrative career but wasn’t happy. Dev League gave me the skills and support to make a successful career change and couldn’t be happier that I did the program.

tl;dr - In short, Dev League was a great experience, the curriculum was very relevant... Read More to what I wanted to do (web development), and although they don’t guarantee job placement like some other programs, a week out of Dev League and I’ve had two firm job offers at awesome places. Email me at ksalcedo.dev@gmail.com if you want to talk more details and I’d be more than happy to discuss whatever questions you may have.

**** Long version ****

General Overview: There are many bootcamps out there that run a pump and dump operation, and as the only bootcamp in Hawaii (at the time of this post), I was wary at first this was a fly-by-night company. This is very much not the case. I have learned marketable skills, the curriculum was great, and I formed lifelong friends & mentors. Dev League prides themselves in the stewardship or their students, and I cannot think of any platform I could have gone into to give me the same results. I would highly recommend Dev League. I have nothing but gratitude for Dev League and the amazing people who make it work.

Bootcamp vs CS Degree vs Self Taught:
I explored all three options extensively, and going to Dev League made the most sense. The cost of tuition and opportunity cost seems very steep at first, but especially if you are considering going back to school or going the self-taught route, I think Dev League hands down trumps either of those choices. 3 months for the full-time program or 6 months for the part time program, in the grand scheme of things, is short and gets you employable in a nominal period of time. The self taught route is difficult because you need a lot of discipline to keep yourself on track and have little context on industry best practices or scope of basic concepts that have other implications. Also, having no in person support to help if you get stuck on a concept or bug can be frustrating and detrimental to your timeline. There are many great resources online that are free or low-cost, but to get me good enough to be employable in a short period time, this was not an option. Computer science degrees take a long time, are math intensive (which is why I was discouraged to do CS in college), typically are more costly than a bootcamp, and don’t always teach the most relevant material. If you want to do more “computer sciencey” things like writing algorithms or machine learning, a bootcamp is definitely not the right fit. If you want to become a competent practitioner in a short period of time to open up more opportunities to become an awesome developer, you should seriously consider a bootcamp and especially Dev League.

Time:
You work long and hard hours. I did the full time program because I simply did not think that working a full-time job and going to class 2 nights/1 full day per week in the part-time program was going to give me the environment I needed to ramp up. I appreciate the part-time program, especially for those who really cannot give up working for 3 months straight, but I drank the koolaid and went all in with the full-time program, which I think was the right decision for me. The full-time course consists of class from Monday to Saturday from 9:00 AM tom 8:00 PM, and we would typically stay after hours to hack more. Make sure that you set the expectations of your friends and family before going into any bootcamp, because it will become your life for at least the time of the program and maybe more.

Culture:
Our cohort was very close and fun. It took us a couple days to warm up, but once we got going there was no stopping us. It is kind of like going to summer camp; you may not know these people for a very long time but you come out with amazing friendships. The alumni network is extensive and has many people who can give insight to whatever you are working on. Many people leave Hawaii and go work from big brand name companies. Others choose to stay in Hawaii and do a wide variety of work. The instructors are nothing but helpful and always have your back. We work really hard, but also had fun so the long days really went by quick. You’d be surprised how much noise, laughter, and music could come from a room full of programmers.

Instructors: The instructors are well seasoned and care a lot about your outcome even though Dev League does not take a job placement fee like some other bootcamps do. They care about what happens to you after because they are awesome people, and not because a financial stake. We had 2 main instructors who were augmented by 2 other developers who would teach particular subject areas. All were more than willing to help you with whatever you want. They had varied backgrounds from corporate types who built enterprise systems to freelancers, which was good to feel out the scope of what was out there. One of the co-founders of Dev League was a developer, worked in marketing, worked for big companies, had a few of his own companies with successful exits, and came back to Hawaii to help foster the tech community. The other co-founder, who also instructs from time-to-time, owns a good size dev shop, has architected big projects, and is always up-to-date on the most relevant technologies. There is a lot of talent and experience to tap into and more-so they are cool people.

Instructional method: Typically the day starts with a short morning coding challenge, followed by a period for instructors/students to discuss the solution, a scrum to get an idea where everyone is, an afternoon lecture, and then a project for the rest of the day. As the program progresses, there will be less instructional time and more project time. The last 2 weeks is dedicated to a final group project, which is the culmination of all the skills you acquired and you are encouraged to stretch you skills to learn something that might have not been covered in the formal curriculum.

Curriculum/Skills: They focus plain vanilla JavaScript and several frameworks. I appreciate that we would solve problems “the hard way” and then learn different abstractions afterward, so I feel like I understood what was happening better than if I learned it the easier way first. We worked a lot with NodeJS. The database side was not as intensive. Angular was the most robust framework we dug into. There was not too much CS type of content besides some Big O stuff and some other concepts sprinkled in. Again, the hope is to get you up to speed as a practitioner and not necessarily a computer science role. There was also not much time spent on technical interviews which was the portion that made me the most anxious, and which is my only criticism of the curriculum.

Job Support: Dev League sends out our resumes to a strong network of employers who have historically been interested in the alumni. There are many other adhoc relationships Dev League has with employers which has been very useful in job searches. They will go out of their way to make calls or introductions to get your foot in the door. You still need to do your part and clean up your projects, make a legit resume, and study for the interview, but they are more than willing to go to bat for you. The employer network is not only local to Hawaii, but extends to the mainland. Again, not as much time was placed on the technical interview, but many alumni have come out with some very good and lucrative job offers. The Hawaii pay scale is typically lower than in some other large cities, but that is to be expected. There are some Hawaii employers or large companies with a Hawaii office who can pay the bigger salary to a junior dev, but if you are staying in Hawaii you should temper your expectations. There is also remote job resources which is also a possibility and I have known other alumni who have been able to secure remote work right out of Dev League. I had 2 solid job offers a week after graduation, and a number of other very interested employers that I are compelling.

Conclusion: Like most things in life, YMMV (your milage may vary). If I had to choose Dev League or another route, I would do Dev League all over again. I came from a great and lucrative career, but I really wanted to get into web development. Dev League was the perfect solution and I have made a successful career transition. Again, if you need a little more insight of whether or not Dev League is for you, you can contact me at ksalcedo.dev@gmail.com. Cheers!!

Initially, I had serious doubts about joining Dev League. I thought "Web Development? Hell no. I want to program games." This was coming from a weak background in Unity C# programming - if you could call it programming - and I was extremely nervous about... Read More wasting time and money. I explored other options including art or returning to traditional schooling (University), but I decided to dive in, considering the bootcamp being in my native state. Best decision I've made in a long time.

When first entering the room I'd spend the next 3 months of my life, there was a mix of excitement and nervousness that all of my classmates were exuding. Tables lined the room, paired with smart-looking monitors and comfy chairs. I took my seat and pretended to look busy checking my email. My busy-making was cut short, thankfully, by the lead instructor and co-founders walk in and starting the round of introductions. After quirky introductions from each classmate (shout out to B-ROCK), we talked about expectations and realities of the course. To be honest, much of the talk about what were going to learn went over my head - like a fire hose to a balloon - but I tried to retain some of the buzzwords like 'asynchronous' and 'node js'. I had no idea what to expect from the course or any prior knowledge about the industry - but I held resistance of my expectations because of my perception of web development.

Throughout the course, everyday got more and more exciting, we were building skills that were tangible and applicable. For each new thing we learned, it was just a step further into the big, big world of software-engineering, and every day that I learned something conceptually new, I could see application and parallels elsewhere. The further into the course and the more I learned about the beautiful Javascript language, the more I realized how little I knew - and it was the best feeling ever. I felt like there was an endless supply of new things to learn and apply your knowledge to. Looking back now, I still don't know as much as I want to, but the disparity of knowledge from when I first started is incredible.

The course has a nicely structured learning plan that holds your hand in the beginning, but weens you off slowly, until at the end you are making decisions about architecture and tools that are very much a part of professional development. The course concentrates on fundamental (vanilla) Javascript, then exposes frameworks and libraries that companies are currently looking for - I've found a personal favorite in Angular. Material covered is taught along side with best practices for implementation and repeatedly stressed as important - but not as important as simply finishing the application or project. There are almost always 2 or 3 teacher assistants on staff at any moment in the course time (9am - 8pm) and class communication is 24 hours a day, resources which are invaluable when you are stuck on a hard problem or bug.

Dev League (like most bootcamps) is an accelerated course, which means the content moves quick. Real quick. It sometimes feels overwhelming when hopping from complex concepts and implementations to the next every day, and it can make you feel inadequate when your grasp of the concept isn't as strong as the other students. While the Dev League team is supportive and tries to adjust to the general ability of the cohort (which is anywhere from 5 to 15 people), it does not slow down too much because there is so much to cover. I found the pacing daunting at first, but grew to love how fast we covered advanced topics because it forces you to focus and improves the ability to think critically.

Honestly, I could write a short novel on my experiences over the past 3 months at Dev League. I won't, because that's boring and has undertones of masochism. I will express my gratitude for the course and the people who helped throughout the process. Because of the awesome culture and friendly attitudes, I have a a new-born confidence in not only my Javascript development abilities, but also in my learning and professional capabilities.

TLDR; Highly reccommend

Coming into Dev League, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I knew that the hours would be long, the work would be difficult, and hopefully, I would learn enough to land myself a job after graduation. The program did not disappoint. Classes are taught... Read More by amazing instructors who are incredibly passionate about the software industry and the work that they do. They make every student's success a priority and you could tell that they genuinely wanted us to become great developers.

In the beginning, the amount of content that we had to digest was staggering, almost to the point of being overwhelming. The Dev League learning environment allowed me to take it all in though and apply the knowledge in meaningful ways. I am astounded by my skill level now. Given that most students had minimal experience prior to Dev League, it's truly mind-blowing how much we all have taken away from this in a mere 12 weeks.

I feel far more confident in my programming ability now. Dev League has provided a springboard of dev skills that prepared me for the road ahead. I can't say that I know everything about software development after only 3 months, but I feel capable of learning anything dev related now, whereas before I would have been completely lost. I would recommend that anyone interested into diving into the world of software/web development join a Dev League full-time cohort. You'll learn more useful, applicable skills than you did in 4 years of college, make great friends, and possibly learn what it feels like to sleep on a cot multiple days a week.

From the beginning, you could tell how much the instructors cared about the student's education. If someone needed help, they made sure that there was someone available to help get us through the hurdles.
I was in the part-time cohort but even that was... Read More pretty intense. What I liked about the part-time was that it gave us a longer period of time to soak in the material that was taught to us.

I came in with an mechanical engineering background. My only experience with coding before this was an introductory class in C and some MATLAB scripting for my lab classes at engineering school. I had no idea how the web worked and how everything connected together. Now, I'm walking out with knowledge of the programming technologies all across the web stack and the confidence to learn more going forward.

I recommend this bootcamp to anyone who is interested in getting into software (web) development. I feel it would especially be helpful for
- non-technical people looking to make a career change
- college students who want to learn more than what's offered in their current curriculum
- and even software developers who just want to learn more across the Javascript stack

$10k is a steal for the lifetime of knowledge you gain from DevLeague.

An intense curriculum that will filter out the weak-minded. That's my experience with DevLeague. The instructors are passionate, insightful, no bs individuals. I was afraid I wouldn't... Read More be able to keep up and at times, I couldn't believe I'd ever feel the satisfaction of calling myself a software engineer.

DevLeague will teach you things you can't learn on your own and anyone that believes this did not and has not produced quality work. We covered over 20 different languages, frameworks and design patterns. This was as hard as it sounds.

My post-graduation takeaway is a network of amazing tech-savvy minds, lifetime friendships and the courage to take on any and every project no matter the fear of the unfamiliar. They will give you more than you need to compete in the tech industry and will walk you to the door of your dreams.

I dabbled in a bit of web programming several years ago before coming to Dev League so some of the material covered was familiar to me. Reasons I attended this boot camp was to reboot my interest in it and get familiar with the current development world... Read More after losing touch with it for so long. After immersing myself in JavaScript code, I came to realize how much the web has really changed and how far JavaScript has evolved since the last time I looked into it. I really enjoyed this bootcamp and all the things it added to my skill set.

In the intensive, long hours of the course, we were thrown into coding challenges and projects that forced us to develop research habits to find solutions. Some parts seemed like a bit of study especially when we were unfamiliar with many things, but we had the instructors there to guide us if we ever found ourselves stuck. The instructors are people I can relate with and love what they do. They are people just like us and and make mistakes too, but proving to their years of knowledge and experience in the subject they are quick to troubleshoot the issue, which would have taken me a considerably larger time. The developer guest talks and hackathons they pulled us into were very valuable in gaining insight and experience to the many views of the software industry.

The joy ride does have its bumps though. This is all really my opinion, but some things like implementing testing and error handling frameworks felt like it was lacking throughout the later half of the course. This could just have been because the amount of time it would take to write our own tests at our level would have taken forever. When error handling methods started appearing in the later half when we started going into frameworks, I was not too sure about the best practices to go about it.

Overall Dev League is an awesome experience to reignite my enthusiasm for the field and give me a running start that I can build off on. I can't say the same for others who may have known less than me or way more than me, but I learned a lot more about programming in this immersive and intensive bootcamp than I did when I went to a college course or online tutorial.